Here are 100 books that The Flower Boat Girl fans have personally recommended if you like
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I'm a hybrid author from Bulgaria, and my work mostly focuses on historical fiction and fantasy. History has always been mainly centered around the male point of view. But many female heroes would also like to tell us their stories. My fascination started with the women Haiduks of Bulgaria, which gave birth to my first book Sirma. And the more I researched, the more I realized countless historical female figures worldwide deserve just as much attention. I hope this list is enriching to all readers and helps them see their captivating point of view.
This is a historical novel about the life of Theodora, Empress of Byzantium. She was born in the sixth century and worked as a prostitute, but eventually became the most powerful woman in the Byzantine Empire. The book is very introspective and we learn a lot about Theodora's inner world. Even though the world throws the worst at her, she still finds the strength to continue onward and keep a sense of justice and positivity.
Multi-award winning novel including gold medals in the Readers' Favorite Historical Personage, IBPA's Best New Voice Fiction, eLit's Best eBook in Historical Fiction, Montaigne Medal finalist (Eric Hoffer Book Award) and Screencraft's Cinematic Book competition.
Inspired by true events, Far Away Bird delves into the complex mind of Byzantine Empress Theodora. This intimate biographical account follows the extraordinary transformation of a poor young woman in a rigid medieval society. From the brothels to the bathhouses, from the theaters to the palaces, Theodora learns to let go of the people she loves most and embrace her own exploitation. But when Theodora…
I'm a hybrid author from Bulgaria, and my work mostly focuses on historical fiction and fantasy. History has always been mainly centered around the male point of view. But many female heroes would also like to tell us their stories. My fascination started with the women Haiduks of Bulgaria, which gave birth to my first book Sirma. And the more I researched, the more I realized countless historical female figures worldwide deserve just as much attention. I hope this list is enriching to all readers and helps them see their captivating point of view.
Brides of Rome offers a unique look into the life of the Vestal Virgins of Rome. The story is told through the viewpoints of several fascinating women, one of which is a vestal virgin, and another one is Cleopatra. Each one has a battle of her own and although some find a bitter end, others survive and thrive. The Roman Empire is notorious for its mistreatment of women, but this book shows a refreshing look at some that received the respect they deserved.
When passion is punishable by death, can one priestess keep her emotions concealed and help steer the course of history?
Ancient Rome is a world of power and privilege, secrets and sacred duty. The esteemed priestesses of Vesta - the Vestal Virgins - are charged with ensuring the Eternal Flame in their temple never goes out. While it burns, Rome cannot fall. They are known as the Brides of Rome.
Dedicated to a thirty-year vow of chaste service, Priestess Pomponia finds herself swept up in the intrigue, violence, wars and bedroom politics of Rome's elite - Julius Caesar, Marc Antony…
I'm a hybrid author from Bulgaria, and my work mostly focuses on historical fiction and fantasy. History has always been mainly centered around the male point of view. But many female heroes would also like to tell us their stories. My fascination started with the women Haiduks of Bulgaria, which gave birth to my first book Sirma. And the more I researched, the more I realized countless historical female figures worldwide deserve just as much attention. I hope this list is enriching to all readers and helps them see their captivating point of view.
The Sekhmet Bed is only the first book of the story of the only female pharaoh of Egypt Hatshepsut. Note that she was not a queen, but a pharaoh. The first book mainly focuses on the life of her mother and the familial and religious perils she went through until she gave birth to the future female pharaoh. By the last few chapters, we will see Hatshepsut as a child and will be compelled to follow her story through the series. Ancient Egypt is a culture that had a place in my heart ever since I was a child, so reading a story about one of its great women rulers was an absolute treat.
Don't miss the second book in this series, The Crook and Flail, at a special price for a limited time!
Is Ahmose's divine gift a blessing or a curse? The second daughter of the Pharaoh, Ahmose has always dreamed of a quiet life as a priestess, serving Egypt's gods, ministering to the people of the Two Lands. But when the Pharaoh dies without an heir, she is given instead as Great Royal Wife to the new king – a soldier of common birth. For Ahmose is god-chosen, gifted with the ability to read dreams, and it is her connection to…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I'm a hybrid author from Bulgaria, and my work mostly focuses on historical fiction and fantasy. History has always been mainly centered around the male point of view. But many female heroes would also like to tell us their stories. My fascination started with the women Haiduks of Bulgaria, which gave birth to my first book Sirma. And the more I researched, the more I realized countless historical female figures worldwide deserve just as much attention. I hope this list is enriching to all readers and helps them see their captivating point of view.
This historical novel centers around the life of a young girl called Pocahontas, who bears witness to the colonization of Jamestown. And unlike the popular Disney version, Peacemaker's Dream shows us the real life of this amazing heroine. We see her transition from a child to an adult, while getting involved with the colonists, and find out how heavy the price of peace can be. Truly, an eye-opening experience.
If you like fast paced historical fiction… this hidden gem will have you burning the midnight oil!
She was young, smart and principled.
They were out to get her. She never gave up… and neither did they…
In a story based on fact, you will discover the heart wrenching account of the struggles of a nation under siege unprepared for the sophistication of its invader. Their most effective weapon was a young girl who has mistakenly been portrayed as a cartoon character in modern culture…
The record is now being put straight.
Having grown up with an older generation—my great-grandparents, great-great aunts and uncles, and a godmother, all who were born between 1877 and 1900—I learned to appreciate how they lived and what they went through. As a child, I found a hand-written poem about a brothel queen who caused a gunfight between her paramour and a stranger. Then, in college, I met a wonderful old man who told me stories about the former red-light district right in my own neighborhood. Once I learned the often tragic, but also successful stories of these ladies, I decided to be their voice and remind America how important they were to our history.
Conrad Richter did a stellar job of giving a true sense of place in Socorro, New Mexico and Bisbee, Arizona, at the turn of 1900. Tacey’s fictionalized yet wonderfully realistic story will break your heart and make you fall in love with the fallen women of the west as I did.
I am a professor of ancient art at Vassar College where I teach Roman art and archaeology. I have published widely in the field and traveled extensively in the Mediterranean. My first encounters with Roman art occurred as a child in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC where I would stand before Roman portrait heads because their faces seemed stern and grim, yet ordinary and matter-of-fact. I have continued to observe Roman portraits over the years, but admit that I still sometimes find them daunting.
Tourists, who are marched through the only designated, purposely-built brothel in Pompeii, stare at the cubicles with built-in masonry beds and wall paintings depicting sexual acts. Richardson pieces together an array of evidence, from various finds and graffiti to the early excavation reports, to assess the experiences of both the male clients and the female prostitutes. According to Richardson, more than sex was provided by the women of the brothel. This book imaginatively reconstructs the activities of the brothel in an intriguing way.
In this book, Sarah Levin-Richardson offers the first authoritative examination of Pompeii's purpose-built brothel, the only verifiable brothel from Greco-Roman antiquity. Taking readers on a tour of all of the structure's evidence, including the rarely seen upper floor, she illuminates the subculture housed within its walls. Here, prostitutes could flout the norms of society and proclaim themselves sexual subjects and agents, while servile clients were allowed to act as 'real men'. Prostitutes and clients also exchanged gifts, greetings, jokes, taunts, and praise. Written in a clear, engaging style, and accompanied by an ample illustration program and translations of humorous and…
Inspiring historical fiction based on the real life of Bertha Benz, whose husband built the first prototype automobile, which eventually evolved into the Mercedes-Benz marque.
"Unfortunately, only a girl again."
From a young age, Cäcilie Bertha Ringer is fascinated by her father's work as a master builder in Pforzheim, Germany.…
As a young teenager, I lived in a small Texas town and loved touring the Victorian “gingerbread” homes full of antiques. I had an overwhelming desire to time travel back to the mid-1800s. When I learned of Diamond Bessie’s story, I was immediately intrigued because of the period, and also by the circumstances of her life. Why does a woman enter the world’s oldest profession? I discovered that I absolutely love research and “time traveled” back to that era by devouring everything I could get my hands on about life in the 19th century, especially for a marginalized woman like Bessie.
After not being able to find a publisher in the early 1900s, Josie Washburn self-published her memoir. In The Underworld Sewer, Josie not only describes her life as a prostitute and madam, but she also debunks the notion at the time that women became prostitutes to “satisfy their own unnatural lusts.” Josie wanted to educate the public about the true horrors and plight of the unfortunate women who had to resort to prostitution to survive and, ultimately, to motivate the public to effect change. Her memoir is as much a scathing commentary on society’s double standards as it is an account of her life as a demi-mondaine.
For twenty years Josie Washburn lived and worked in houses of prostitution. She spent the last twelve as the madam of a moderately fancy brothel in Lincoln, Nebraska. After retiring in 1907 and moving to Omaha, she turned to "throwing a searchlight on the underworld," including the "cribs" of Nebraska's largest city. The Underworld Sewer, based on her own experience in the profession, blazes with a kind of honesty unavailable to more conventional moral reformers. Originally published in 1909, The Underworld Sewer asks why "the social evil" is universally considered necessary or inevitable. Washburn minces no words in exposing the…
As a young teenager, I lived in a small Texas town and loved touring the Victorian “gingerbread” homes full of antiques. I had an overwhelming desire to time travel back to the mid-1800s. When I learned of Diamond Bessie’s story, I was immediately intrigued because of the period, and also by the circumstances of her life. Why does a woman enter the world’s oldest profession? I discovered that I absolutely love research and “time traveled” back to that era by devouring everything I could get my hands on about life in the 19th century, especially for a marginalized woman like Bessie.
Nell Kimball was the least educated of the prostitute authors I read but also the most colorful. And the only one who didn’t feel trapped in the profession. Like Josie Washburn, Nell couldn’t find a publisher for her memoir when she looked for one in 1932. She was 78 years old and reportedly in dire straits financially. Nell had started in the “trade” in St. Louis at the age of fifteen in 1867 and worked as a prostitute and then as a madam, lastly in New Orleans’s famed Storyville red-light district, until it was shut down in 1917. Nell died in 1934. Her book was finally published by Macmillan in 1970.
I’m grateful that Madeleine, Josie, and Nell were fortuitous enough to pen their stories, to record a first-hand account of an era that we otherwise would not be privy to in such a personal way.
A witty, wild-spirited, purely American autobiography by a prostitute-turned-madam who lived and operated at the turn of the twentieth century.
“Looking back on my life, and it’s the only way I can look at it now, nothing in it came out the way most people would want their life to be lived. And while I began at fifteen in a good house with no plans, just wanting as a young whore to hunker on to something to eat and something good to wear, I ended up as a business woman, becoming a sporting house madam, recruiting, disciplining whores, running high-class…
Born and raised in China, I moved to Canada in my late 20s to pursue a master's degree and stayed here, becoming a first-generation immigrant. But home is always home—my ancestors lived and died on that land. My country's history, culture, traditions, and social structures deeply fascinate me, especially its modern history, which has profoundly shaped me. China's history is rich, captivating, and often brutal, and I believe the world needs to know what we have gone through. The five books I recommend, including works by two Nobel Prize-winning authors, are literary masterpieces. They not only offer deep insights into China's modern history but also showcase extraordinary literary artistry.
I love this book for its unique perspective. Most war stories feature heroic protagonists—whether fighting on the front lines, operating behind enemy lines, or innocent victims enduring hardship and struggling to survive. However, this book presents a group of characters who ordinarily would be unlikely to cross paths. A Roman Catholic priest and a deacon in an American church during the Japanese occupation of Nanking in China were tasked with protecting 16 schoolgirls. They unexpectedly become entangled with 13 young prostitutes from a famous brothel and three injured Chinese soldiers.
The priest faces an impossible dilemma: allowing the prostitutes to stay means there will be less food and water for everyone, but turning them away could lead to their deaths. The presence of the injured soldiers complicates matters further; if discovered, the church would lose its neutrality and risk a raid by Japanese soldiers, endangering everyone inside.
December 1937. The Japanese have taken Nanking. A group of terrified schoolgirls hides in the compound of an American church. Among them is Shujuan, through whose thirteen-year-old eyes we witness the shocking events that follow.
Run by Father Engelmann, an American priest who has been in China for many years, the church is supposedly neutral ground in the war between China and Japan. But it becomes clear the Japanese are not obeying international rules of engagement. As they pour through the streets of Nanking, raping and pillaging the civilian population, the girls are in increasing danger. And their safety is…
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the…
I don’t write about well-behaved women. I prefer rebels and outcasts, women who, by choice or circumstance, live outside of social norms. 19th-century American history is full of such women—if you know where to look. Hint: not in most public-school textbooks. They’re found, instead, in archives and libraries, in old newspapers and journals, in family letters and autobiographies. The characters in my most recent novel, Reliance, Illinois, were inspired by badass 19th-century women, such as Victoria Woodhull, Mary Livermore, and Olympia Brown. Each of the novels in the list below were inspired by or based on audacious women. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!
The forthright honesty and the audacity of Nora Simms, narrator of Erika Mailman’s Woman of Ill Fame, is stunning and nearly as compelling as the murder mystery at the center of the novel. Set in San Francisco during the Gold Rush, the novel takes us into the city’s bordellos, which, like the rest of the state, have been infected by aget rich quick at any costethos. The cost for many of Nora’s colleagues is high. Women of ill-fame are being killed, one by one, and only Nora is capable and willing to wade through layers of deception to discover the identity of the killer and to save her own life.
Nora is not your typical damsel in distress and that might be why I love this book so much. She’s not a “good” woman, by society's standards, but she is one of the most surprising…
Looking for a better life, prostitute Nora Simms arrives in Gold Rush San Francisco with a plan for success: to strike it rich by trading on her good looks. But when a string of murders claims several of her fellow women of ill fame, Nora grows uneasy with how closely linked all of the victims are to her. She must distinguish friend from foe in a race to discover the identity of the killer.
"I LOVED Woman of Ill Fame! Nora Simms is hilarious, heartbreaking, tough, perceptive...and one of the most engaging characters I've ever met between the pages of…
